The resolution below was passed at Local 1215’s March 27, 2026, membership meeting, by a unanimous “yea” vote:
AFSCME Local 1215 Day of Civic Action–May Day Resolution
WHEREAS May Day is rooted in Chicago’s labor history and represents the global tradition of workers organizing collectively for dignity, safety, and justice, and
WHEREAS the City of Chicago has the opportunity to set an example on May 1, 2026, and model what it means to be a union town, and the greatest freaking city in the world, and
WHEREAS in recent years, May Day has become a powerful National Day of Action uniting everyday workers, immigrants, and community organizations to demand worker and immigrant rights, prioritizing people over billionaires, and democracy over authoritarianism, and
WHEREAS historic examples – from enslaved Africans breaking the confederacy, to the Haymarket Martyrs’ demonstrations for an 8-hour work day, to A Day Without an Immigrant in 2006, to black Friday protests following the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2015 – have shown the power of mass collective action, and
WHEREAS the United States is experiencing a massive systemic crisis of funding for public services including libraries while our country spends billions to expand domestic mass incarceration and systems of surveillance, and engages in illegal wars and blockades of other countries, and
WHEREAS the defunding of the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services), expansion of book bans, and government-guided news censorship create more obstacles to fulfilling our professional responsibilities as library workers, while AI-powered disinformation and deep fakes remain unregulated, and
WHEREAS the working people around the world AND working people of the United States continue to experience higher costs of living and lower quality of life while billionaires enjoy record profits from political and economic destabilization resulting from war, and
WHEREAS working people are expected to continue to normalize fascism at home and imperialism abroad and to pretend it’s all “business as usual” while ICE occupies our cities, kidnaps our neighbors, and expands the industry of mass incarceration in a country that already has the most prisoners in the world, and
WHEREAS our patrons and all Chicagoans deserve a society that actually meets the material needs of its people through abundant resources, collective care, adequately-funded public services, and spaces where community can come together without fear, military assaults, without silence nor complicity, and
WHEREAS international resistance to fascism teaches us that the most effective force to strengthen and fortify our country’s democracy is workers’ collective action in coalition with our communities.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED…
- We are calling on Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown to close the libraries on May 1, 2026 and declare it a paid emergency Day of Civic Action so AFSCME Local 1215 members and library patrons can stand together and march with workers throughout Chicagoland, the nation, and the world to demand a stop to the atrocities being enacted on our local and global communities.
- Leading up to May Day, 2026, AFSCME Local 1215 members will host teach-ins, film screenings, media literacy, and arts programs to equip patrons, workers, and Chicagoans with tools to defend themselves and their communities.
- Local 1215 members will send this resolution to Mayor Brandon Johnson and CPL Commissioner Chris Brown asking for their full support and participation in May Day activities by formally declaring May 1 a Day of Civic Action, and, in the lead-up to May 1, encouraging library workers to engage in age-appropriate civic learning programs.
- AFSCME Local 1215 calls on all of its members to engage in, and requests that Council 31 formally endorse, an economic boycott on May 1, 2026. We ask that our members withhold their spending from large corporate retailers such as Walmart, Target, Amazon, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other big businesses that profit at workers’ expense while too often failing to respect workers and communities and remaining silent in the face of the occupation Chicago has experienced.
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